Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-08-31

this point, citing the contract, wherein
that tribunal held that: "This contract is
binding on the United States and they
cannot, without consent of the company,
change its terms by any subsequent legisla-
ton
1t IS not necessary to pursue the review
of the decision at greater length, we must
assume that it will be generally read, and
will be earnestly more studied, since it is
oil vital interest to every citizen, and will
contribute to the enlargement of intelli-
gcnce concerning the rights of citizens and
the limit Of legislative authority.
While in fact the decision on the main
question involved is not new in declara-
ton Of principles, they having been the
subject of judicial Interpretation, among
others in the celebrated Kilbourn case, in
which Congress was party to the judicial
proceeding that brought the case into
Court, yet the restatement of the princi-
piles and their illustration by the F FEDERAL
Judges cannot but greatly inform the
minds of citizens and direct their thoughts
to consideration of the substructural factors
of our system of government. For we
must assume that not all have given these
subjects the profound thought they de-
mand of the citizen, and in fact it is in
disputable that there is much popular mis-
conception concerning the powers of Con-
gress, and the relation of the judicial
branch of the Government to the Legisla-
ture.
1t was, perhaps, needed that this case
should arise, that the rapidly augmenting
sentiment that the legislative authority
III its administration of attributes of sove-
reignty is linitless, should receive such a
check as the judgment of the Federal
Court puts upon it.
Rancorous envy, disappointed ambition
and political demagogy have fed the fires
of prejudice and unreason so long on rail-
road questions that it had come to be
quite accepted that the corporate person
had no rights the legislative authority
need respect, or that it could not, by its
supposed supreme might, contemptuously
override. The assumed limitless power of
this arm of the Government has for many
years been made an instrument of torture
and extortion applied to large capitalized
interests, but on none has the iron been so
holly pressed in as the railroad companies
1t has, to Il very great extent, been lost
sight of by political manipulators and
legislative inquisitors, in their haste to
promote popular prejudice, that there is a
corrective and conservative factor in our
governmental system with its springs of
vitality in the fundamental law, indie
pendent of the legislative and executive,
the peer of each, which stands as it has
since the foundations of the Government
were laid, the chief barrier to usurpation
Of authority, abuse of power, and encroach-
ment upon the inalienable rights of the
citizen.
If the decision of the three Judges of
the United States Circuit Court shall serve,
as we believe it will, to recall the people
to more deliberate contemplation of the
theory, principles and safeguards of free
government, and the hedging about of in
dividual rights with impossible barriers
| against usurpation and invasion, which the
organic law and the scheme of trinity of
indepeldent branches in the Government
| achieves, then the unwarranted assump-
tons and arrogant demands of the Pacific
Railway Commission will have served some
| good purpose, and the interests and citi-
zens that were assailed by its insolence
and aggression will not have suffered in